I remember attending a public lecture at Stanford by Kahneman, who received Nobel Prize in Economy in 2002 for his work with Amos Tversky, in which they pointed out, among other things, that when people tend to make decisions based on intuition or rule of a thumb, they end up making worse decisions than decisions they would make if they only used statistical evidence.
One of the examples Kahneman cited was research of addmittance process in medical school. According to it, medical school was much better off when making decision just by looking at the application, as opposed to interviewing prospects, because after interview people in charge of admission were much more likely to use their intuition, which led to more mistakes than they would make, have they based their decision on statistics.
I'm no expert in science publishing business, but I can tell you with certainty that Russian scientists absolutely cannot afford to pay money for the publishing their work. I graduated from the major Russian univerisity, which didn't even have the subsription of major journals like Phys.Rev.B. How do you expect them to pay for publishing? I know people who buy their groceries with money from publishing their articles (this is an exaggeration to a degree, since grants are bigger source of income)
I can't even disagree with you. However, I just felt that the text was quite heavy on basic math. Your post is yet another reason to shift focus to physics way more, which should not necessary require going into heavy math. I believe Born used to say: "Mathematical formalism is a great help in describing complex things, but useless in understanding of real processes." (approximate quote)
Once again, that's just my perception of approach to subject. My impression of math overload might even be wrong since I didn't spend much time with the text.
I have my doubts about this book. I just can't quite figure out what is the target audience here. First 100 pages or so (which is almost half) are dedicated to overview of elementary math and physics. I would certainly agree that it is necessary to reiterate through some fundametals like Turing Machine, but one that is unfamiliar with simlpe basics like eigenvalues or complex numbers should probably stay away from not obvious topics like quantum computing.
I know you this issue is addressed in the introduction, even more, it is kind of the point of the book, however, I have serious doubts about how well it is going to work out. People who are so unfamiliar with basic math, even after becoming somewhat familiar with it after first chapters of the book, probably still are not going to be able to apply that math or even comprehend chapters, in which that math is used. The book is pretty much iterating through about two years of full-time studies of student majoring in physics, so I don't think there are so many people who are able to soak that information up quickly and then be able to use that knowledge. If one wants to write Hamiltonians, he must know linear algebra, complex numbers, etc. There is no way around it.
Let me illustrate what I mean. There is, for example, conservation of energy, which is quite clear and intuitive concept that can be grasped by any high school student. Quite a lot of things can be explained or illustrated by applying it and it will still be easy to understand. However, if one would attempt to go deeper and try to approach teaching it from the invariant principles, that's going to bring quite a lot of complicated things with it, including math (symmetry, Hamiltonians, 3j symbols, you name it). Not only high school students, but majority of undergrads will be simply overwhelmed and confused, not educated.
The way I see it there are probably only two choices. One is to assume certain knowledge possessed by reader. However, the idea of the book is quite opposite. That pretty much leaves the author with second option, which is qualitative, conceptual discussion with possible references to more detailed, quantative analysis sources. Unfortunately, that is outstandingly hard task. Book like that would be terrific and would probably boost the interest for the field from a lot of students (GEB, anyone?)
I certainly appreciate the effort though. As soon as the never-ending crunch-time at work is over, I will try to read the book and provide some more feedback (of somewhat dubious value).
Knowing some ISPs in Russia, whoever pays for this forum hosting is not going to have dinner anytime soon since he'll be saving to pay the traffic bill.
While I'm no expert at CS programs in the US universities, I lean towards belief that it does matter where you go to school. Good schools in general have better resources, better instructors and better students. There is a serious improvement in quality of knowledge you get when you are studiing with the group of extremely smart individuals as opposed to group of the average ones. It leads to more rewarding interactions with people you study with and allows instructor to cover more complicated and interesting aspects of the subjects. At least it is true for science subjects (I majored in Physics). The level of students always had MAJOR impact on how much you learn in my experience (I studied in Russia). My dad was a CS instructor for about 20 years and he would say the same thing.
There is no substitute for experience obviously, but I would that think one should want to maximize the gains from his college/university years.
While your point is valid, that raises questions about how well we understand weather and what long-term conclusions could be drawn from this kind of simulations.
The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles.
Now, if one performs an experiment and has unpredicted results, it's understandable. But if you run a simulation and can't explain the results, something is probably wrong. Even if usual suspicions towards such complicated simulations are put aside, it still doesn't make a lot of sense.
Apparently you don't have any experience with the US immigration laws. "A shot at citizenship/permanent residency"? People can't even get guest and student visas into the US, hurdles for H-1B are quite high. I wish it would be so easy as you describe, but it's not. For instance, the average waiting period of application for green card for a spouse of green card holder is about five years.
The link to their website [amsuper.com], mentioned earlier, has some really nice technical papers. For one type of the wire they use some complicated compound with Tc =110 K. Didn't find Tc for the second type of wire (Y123). I'm pretty sure, however, that even if Tc is higher than 77 K, they still run it on 77 K, since other parameters like Ic should be better than around Tc. And nitrogent is pretty much standart cryoagent anyway.
Their critical current for those wires looks pretty impressive (> 100 A )
Slashdot Mirror
One of the examples Kahneman cited was research of addmittance process in medical school. According to it, medical school was much better off when making decision just by looking at the application, as opposed to interviewing prospects, because after interview people in charge of admission were much more likely to use their intuition, which led to more mistakes than they would make, have they based their decision on statistics.
You mean to tell me any EE undergrad can now break half of my Saturn with pda and antenna? Dang, I better check if my car insurance cover that...
I'm no expert in science publishing business, but I can tell you with certainty that Russian scientists absolutely cannot afford to pay money for the publishing their work. I graduated from the major Russian univerisity, which didn't even have the subsription of major journals like Phys.Rev.B. How do you expect them to pay for publishing? I know people who buy their groceries with money from publishing their articles (this is an exaggeration to a degree, since grants are bigger source of income)
I can't even disagree with you. However, I just felt that the text was quite heavy on basic math. Your post is yet another reason to shift focus to physics way more, which should not necessary require going into heavy math. I believe Born used to say: "Mathematical formalism is a great help in describing complex things, but useless in understanding of real processes." (approximate quote) Once again, that's just my perception of approach to subject. My impression of math overload might even be wrong since I didn't spend much time with the text.
I know you this issue is addressed in the introduction, even more, it is kind of the point of the book, however, I have serious doubts about how well it is going to work out. People who are so unfamiliar with basic math, even after becoming somewhat familiar with it after first chapters of the book, probably still are not going to be able to apply that math or even comprehend chapters, in which that math is used. The book is pretty much iterating through about two years of full-time studies of student majoring in physics, so I don't think there are so many people who are able to soak that information up quickly and then be able to use that knowledge. If one wants to write Hamiltonians, he must know linear algebra, complex numbers, etc. There is no way around it.
Let me illustrate what I mean. There is, for example, conservation of energy, which is quite clear and intuitive concept that can be grasped by any high school student. Quite a lot of things can be explained or illustrated by applying it and it will still be easy to understand. However, if one would attempt to go deeper and try to approach teaching it from the invariant principles, that's going to bring quite a lot of complicated things with it, including math (symmetry, Hamiltonians, 3j symbols, you name it). Not only high school students, but majority of undergrads will be simply overwhelmed and confused, not educated.
The way I see it there are probably only two choices. One is to assume certain knowledge possessed by reader. However, the idea of the book is quite opposite. That pretty much leaves the author with second option, which is qualitative, conceptual discussion with possible references to more detailed, quantative analysis sources. Unfortunately, that is outstandingly hard task. Book like that would be terrific and would probably boost the interest for the field from a lot of students (GEB, anyone?)
I certainly appreciate the effort though. As soon as the never-ending crunch-time at work is over, I will try to read the book and provide some more feedback (of somewhat dubious value).
Even if we escape to panother universe,we cannot escape Grey Goo
Knowing some ISPs in Russia, whoever pays for this forum hosting is not going to have dinner anytime soon since he'll be saving to pay the traffic bill.
That's where those pro players are. This is not a joke
While I'm no expert at CS programs in the US universities, I lean towards belief that it does matter where you go to school. Good schools in general have better resources, better instructors and better students. There is a serious improvement in quality of knowledge you get when you are studiing with the group of extremely smart individuals as opposed to group of the average ones. It leads to more rewarding interactions with people you study with and allows instructor to cover more complicated and interesting aspects of the subjects. At least it is true for science subjects (I majored in Physics). The level of students always had MAJOR impact on how much you learn in my experience (I studied in Russia). My dad was a CS instructor for about 20 years and he would say the same thing. There is no substitute for experience obviously, but I would that think one should want to maximize the gains from his college/university years.
While your point is valid, that raises questions about how well we understand weather and what long-term conclusions could be drawn from this kind of simulations.
The exact mechanism for this is unclear, but the scientists believe it may have to do with the disruption of the flow of heat from the equator to the poles.
Now, if one performs an experiment and has unpredicted results, it's understandable. But if you run a simulation and can't explain the results, something is probably wrong. Even if usual suspicions towards such complicated simulations are put aside, it still doesn't make a lot of sense.
Apparently you don't have any experience with the US immigration laws. "A shot at citizenship/permanent residency"? People can't even get guest and student visas into the US, hurdles for H-1B are quite high. I wish it would be so easy as you describe, but it's not. For instance, the average waiting period of application for green card for a spouse of green card holder is about five years.
Only now I fully understand what is Hyper-Threading
The link to their website [amsuper.com], mentioned earlier, has some really nice technical papers. For one type of the wire they use some complicated compound with Tc =110 K. Didn't find Tc for the second type of wire (Y123). I'm pretty sure, however, that even if Tc is higher than 77 K, they still run it on 77 K, since other parameters like Ic should be better than around Tc. And nitrogent is pretty much standart cryoagent anyway. Their critical current for those wires looks pretty impressive (> 100 A )